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Sun, 07 Jun 2020 07:02:24 GMTFeedCreatorClass 1.0 dev (follow.it)64-bit And A Display: Minecraft Computers 10 Years Laterhttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpUVVTU_jxpI_jLW_981hfOb-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0eaJxo7dDvM9X02xOlFxBoY8OjxlMgM_sVO8hBY6Z96k-gSqkBFlU8UNvy8zSimCwT6j0lRgYxFL87j4AfN4WM6Kw
<img src="https://api.follow.it/rssubscribers/rss_show_story_count/391864979/429701" border=0 width="1" height="1" alt="Story 391864979" title="Story 391864979"> <p>Some people build their own computer to play games, while others play games to build their own computer. Minecraft is the prime candidate for the latter, and while you can certainly arrange the blocks to make them <em>look</em> like a computer, we&#8217;re of course talking about replicating the actual functionality of a CPU or parts thereof, and/or external components within the game. Many such creations have spawned in the decade since the first Minecraft-built ALU surfaced, and [Rockfarmor] built a 64-bit specimen to add to that list &#8212; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_EStNvK2MQ" target="_blank">and made a video to showcase it</a>.</p>
<p>Instead of emulating a common architecture, [Rockfarmor] went for a more home-made approach, and re-used the architecture from <a href="http://www.isy.liu.se/edu/kurs/TSEA83/pdf/mia_manual.pdf" target="_blank">an old school assignment</a> (in Swedish) as basis. The result is a simple yet fully functional 64-bit CPU with 32 registers, 32kB main memory and a separate 16kB stack. The instruction set mostly contains ALU and branching operations, but also a few special opcodes to control an additional 64&#215;64 <del>pixel</del> blocks, 64-color display &#8212; including drawing circles, lines, and color fills.</p>
<p>More details on the architecture can be found in <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NfDmDYPnpaJvmY7EqdSZpa3C7JCXjeHkXDTkb1w0dow/" target="_blank">its documentation</a> and in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCAQdrBz04o" target="_blank">an older video</a> (with subpar audio circumstances unfortunately). An additional <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdxXk6xDTXE" target="_blank">time-lapse video of the initial build</a> is also available, and you will find all of them after break. To simplify development, [Rockfarmor] also wrote a desktop app to program the computer in assembly and upload it straight to the Minecraft version.</p>
<p>As with all computers built in Minecraft, the driving force is <a href="https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Tutorials/Redstone_computers" target="_blank"><em>redstone</em></a>, which essentially allows <a href="https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Mechanics/Redstone/Logic_circuit" target="_blank">circuit design</a> within the game, and [Rockfarmor]&#8217;s is no difference here. He also uses <a href="https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Tutorials/Command_blocks_and_functions" target="_blank">command blocks</a> to avoid the laboriously and slow &#8220;wiring&#8221; required otherwise, turning it more into a &#8220;wireless redstone&#8221; circuit.</p>
<p>No doubt, purists will consider this cheating, but another angle would be to see it as Moore&#8217;s Law applied to Minecraft computers, considering the computer&#8217;s size and speed compared to <a href="https://hackaday.com/2010/09/29/16-bit-alu-in-minecraft/">the first Minecraft ALU</a>. Or maybe as the equivalent of microcode in real-world CPUs? Or then, maybe we should just accept and embrace different options and preferences.</p>
<p><span id="more-416212"></span></p>
<p><iframe class='youtube-player' width='800' height='480' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/A_EStNvK2MQ?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;wmode=transparent' allowfullscreen='true' style='border:0;'></iframe><br />
<iframe class='youtube-player' width='800' height='480' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/gCAQdrBz04o?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;wmode=transparent' allowfullscreen='true' style='border:0;'></iframe><br />
<iframe class='youtube-player' width='800' height='480' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/LdxXk6xDTXE?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;wmode=transparent' allowfullscreen='true' style='border:0;'></iframe></p>Sun, 07 Jun 2020 05:00:30 GMThttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpUVVTU_jxpI_jLW_981hfOb-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0eaJxo7dDvM9X02xOlFxBoY8OjxlMgM_sVO8hBY6Z96k-gSqkBFlU8UNvy8zSimCwT6j0lRgYxFL87j4AfN4WM6KwTesting Hardware with ASCII Waveformshttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpUVVTU_jxpI_kkHJEZ07ipH-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0eablx3r604O6W22ugfRqyxIWsoLffPF9mQ9uUlqpSUsCmz_4omscPE5w-CAoeDpD-D
<img src="https://api.follow.it/rssubscribers/rss_show_story_count/391864978/429701" border=0 width="1" height="1" alt="Story 391864978" title="Story 391864978"> <p>Testing software is &#8212; sometimes &#8212; easier than testing hardware. After all, you can always create test files and even fake user input before monitoring outputs using common tools. Hardware though, is a bit different. Sometimes it is hard to visualize exactly what&#8217;s happening. [Andrew Ray&#8217;s] answer? <a href="https://blog.janestreet.com/using-ascii-waveforms-to-test-hardware-designs/" target="_blank">Produce simulated waveforms using ASCII text</a>.</p>
<p>The process uses some custom tools written in OCaml, but the code is available for you on <a href="https://github.com/janestreet?q=expect&amp;type=&amp;language=" target="_blank">GitHub</a>. The tool, called <a href="https://github.com/janestreet?q=hardcaml&amp;type=&amp;language=" target="_blank">Hardcaml</a>, allows you to write test benches for hardware &#8212; not a new idea for FPGA developers. The output, however, is an ASCII text waveform and common software development tools can check that waveform against the expected output.</p>
<p><span id="more-416154"></span></p>
<p>You could do the same thing with a Verilog VCD file, of course, but it wouldn&#8217;t be as much fun to read. You&#8217;d want to use a waveform viewer to really see what&#8217;s going on. In fact, we wondered if it would be worth going the other way, to convert the Hardcaml output to VCD so tools you use to diff waveforms would possibly work.</p>
<p>We like <a href="https://hackaday.com/2016/06/28/retrotechtacular-ascii-art-in-the-19th-century/">ASCII art</a>. In fact, we took our own crack at <a href="http://www.al-williams.com/free/asciicad.htm" target="_blank">ASCII CAD</a> back in 2002. You can even go <a href="https://hackaday.com/2020/01/01/explore-this-3d-world-rendered-in-ascii-art/">3D with your ASCII art</a> if you like.</p>Sun, 07 Jun 2020 02:00:29 GMThttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpUVVTU_jxpI_kkHJEZ07ipH-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0eablx3r604O6W22ugfRqyxIWsoLffPF9mQ9uUlqpSUsCmz_4omscPE5w-CAoeDpD-DA DIY Electronic Load with a Twisthttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpUVVTU_jxpI_jkufuc8IcKk-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0eaL2rk8posw0Tc5UvPPcdLCFsD4Ng9-R07193oiS8Z79To40pnuPebGg
<img src="https://api.follow.it/rssubscribers/rss_show_story_count/391864977/429701" border=0 width="1" height="1" alt="Story 391864977" title="Story 391864977"> <p>If you&#8217;re testing a power supply or battery pack, an electronic load is a nice tool to have. By watching the voltage as you crank up the resistance, you can verify the unit&#8217;s real-world capabilities quickly and easily. But [Xavier Bourlot] wanted a bit more information than is generally afforded by these devices, so he came up with his own <a href="https://github.com/reivax-boucoi/Electronic_Load" target="_blank">scratch built load that can measure the voltage at multiple points in the circuit</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/diyload_detail.png" target="_blank"><img data-attachment-id="416049" data-permalink="https://hackaday.com/2020/06/06/a-diy-electronic-load-with-a-twist/diyload_detail/" data-orig-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/diyload_detail.png" data-orig-size="455,172" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="diyload_detail" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/diyload_detail.png?w=400" data-large-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/diyload_detail.png?w=455" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-416049" src="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/diyload_detail.png?w=400" alt="" width="400" height="151" srcset="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/diyload_detail.png 455w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/diyload_detail.png?resize=250,95 250w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/diyload_detail.png?resize=400,151 400w" sizes="(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px" /></a>Now at first glance, it might not be obvious why you&#8217;d want such a capability. But [Xavier] is looking to do something very specific with this device: analyze the efficiency of DC-DC converters. The idea is that if the electronic load can measure the voltage on both sides of the converter, it can calculate what kind of losses are being incurred.</p>
<p>Could you do this with a multimeter and a traditional electronic load? Sure. But if it&#8217;s the kind of thing you&#8217;ll be doing a lot of, it&#8217;s not hard to see why this method would be preferable.</p>
<p>But even if you ignore the converter analysis capabilities, this looks to be a very useful device to have around the lab. [Xavier] says it can sink more than 5 amps, and handle an input voltage as high as 100 volts. Powered by an ATmega328P, the load is also fully programmable and even features an I2C expansion port that you can use to hang additional hardware or sensors on. The stock firmware is already quite capable, and the list of future enhancements has some very interesting entries such as the ability to log data over serial or to a SD card.</p>
<p>We&#8217;ve seen a number of <a href="https://hackaday.com/2014/04/29/a-simple-programmable-electronic-load-using-the-arduino/">programmable electronic load projects</a> over the years, <a href="https://hackaday.com/2014/02/24/an-arduino-programmable-load/">ranging from Arduino shields</a> to <a href="https://hackaday.com/2020/02/28/a-simple-yet-feature-packed-programmable-dc-load/">VFD equipped units that would be the pride of any hacker&#8217;s bench</a>.</p>Sat, 06 Jun 2020 23:00:21 GMThttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpUVVTU_jxpI_jkufuc8IcKk-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0eaL2rk8posw0Tc5UvPPcdLCFsD4Ng9-R07193oiS8Z79To40pnuPebGgCheap Party Light Gets Arduino Upgradehttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpVci6BvYJ5ILu-4vv_T_suw-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0eaGimRaWrFf1iZ846HvYq66onyxIhJ19_o49ofltVYck-TXWTyn6P33r9J2SR5uGfw
<img src="https://api.follow.it/rssubscribers/rss_show_story_count/391802955/429701" border=0 width="1" height="1" alt="Story 391802955" title="Story 391802955"> <p>If you&#8217;ve got a party coming up and are looking to add a little bit of excitement, <a href="https://github.com/ferociousdiablo/arduflower" target="_blank">you might be interested in this recent project from [Gav Lewis]</a>. The build is based on a commercially available party light, but with some upgraded components the final product is brighter and more dynamic than it was stock.</p>
<p>Realistically, [Gav] has changed out almost every component of this light except for the enclosure and the front lens. The original 5 mm LED array was replaced with a new 8&#215;8 WS2812B panel, and the electronics completely replaced with an Arduino Nano. He&#8217;s still using the light&#8217;s original power supply, but as it only puts out around 4.2 V, he&#8217;s added a boost converter to provide a stable 5 V for the new hardware. He also added a small 12 V cooling fan, which he says is basically silent since it&#8217;s only getting half its rated voltage.</p>
<p>[Gav] has developed a number of lighting patterns with FastLED that do a good job of emulating what you might see from a much more expensive laser scanner. In the video after the break, you can see how multiple colored beams of light exit the housing at once, projecting patterns on the opposite wall. He says he&#8217;s like to restore the device&#8217;s original sound activation mode, but as of yet hasn&#8217;t gotten the code sorted out.</p>
<p>This project uses a off-the-shelf 8&#215;8 matrix of WS2812B LEDs, but if you ever find yourself needing to piece together your own array from individual LEDs, <a href="https://hackaday.com/2020/05/08/these-led-shades-will-blind-you-with-science/">we recently covered a great tip for making it a bit easier</a>.</p>
<p><span id="more-415401"></span></p>
<p><iframe class='youtube-player' width='800' height='480' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/sVy2k0N5fuQ?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;wmode=transparent' allowfullscreen='true' style='border:0;'></iframe></p>Sat, 06 Jun 2020 20:00:51 GMThttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpVci6BvYJ5ILu-4vv_T_suw-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0eaGimRaWrFf1iZ846HvYq66onyxIhJ19_o49ofltVYck-TXWTyn6P33r9J2SR5uGfwLattice Drops EULA Clause Forbidding FPGA Bitstream Reverse Engineeringhttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpVci6BvYJ5ILsXb8-6pLB7h-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0ea7bSdbTzA1dqKQm8tDmwWHONiGozUyF1eX77Iw3sAoOvMuC0rPPmJ98zbQofR6cLTIolCvBuPWmzxjNimSOKSB5UIsgw6fy5Ri67FLF5oAXQ
<img src="https://api.follow.it/rssubscribers/rss_show_story_count/391802954/429701" border=0 width="1" height="1" alt="Story 391802954" title="Story 391802954"> <p>Yesterday we reported that Lattice Semiconductor had inserted <a href="https://hackaday.com/2020/06/05/lattice-semiconductor-targets-bitstream-reverse-engineering-in-latest-propel-sdk-license/">a clause that restricted the reverse engineering of bitstreams</a> produced by their FPGA toolchains. Although not explicitly stated, it&#8217;s assumed that this was directed toward several projects over the past five years that have created fully open source toolchains by reverse engineering the bitstream protocols of the Lattice ICE40 and ECP5 FPGA architectures. Late yesterday <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/lattice-semiconductor_lattice-propel-license-activity-6674864964295114752-fe-5" target="_blank">Lattice made an announcement reversing course</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p><span class="break-words"><span dir="ltr">To the open source community, thank-you for pointing out a new bitstream usage restriction in the Lattice Propel license. We are excited about the community’s engagement with Lattice devices and our intent is to not hinder the creation of innovative open source FPGA tools. </span></span></p></blockquote>
<p>It&#8217;s refreshing then to see this announcement from Lattice Semiconductor. Even more so is the unexpected turn of speed with which they have done so, within a couple of days of it being discovered by the open-source community. We report depressingly often on boneheaded legal moves from corporations intent on curbing open source uses of their products. This announcement from Lattice removes what was an admonition opposing open source toolchains, can we hope that the company will continue yesterday&#8217;s gesture and build a more lasting relationship with the open source community?</p>
<p>The underlying point to this story is that in the world of electronics there has long been an understanding that hardware hackers drive product innovation which will later lead to more sales. Texas Instruments would for years supply samples of exotic semiconductors to impecunious students for one example, and maybe you have a base-model Rigol oscilloscope with a tacitly-approved software hack that gives it an extra 50MHz of bandwidth for another.</p>
<p>We can only congratulate Lattice on their recognition that open source use of their products is beneficial for them, and wish that some of the other companies triggering similar stories would see the world in the same way. Try interacting more with your open source fans; they know and love your hardware more than the average user and embracing that could mean a windfall for you down the road.</p>Sat, 06 Jun 2020 17:01:29 GMThttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpVci6BvYJ5ILsXb8-6pLB7h-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0ea7bSdbTzA1dqKQm8tDmwWHONiGozUyF1eX77Iw3sAoOvMuC0rPPmJ98zbQofR6cLTIolCvBuPWmzxjNimSOKSB5UIsgw6fy5Ri67FLF5oAXQBurning Chromehttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpVci6BvYJ5ILo7t9WW45yfv-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0eaLuP1qDfmsEAh9DsAzkMxh79J2SR5uGfw
<img src="https://api.follow.it/rssubscribers/rss_show_story_count/391802953/429701" border=0 width="1" height="1" alt="Story 391802953" title="Story 391802953"> <p>You want a good project that combines multiple disciplines, gives you something useful in the end, and will certainly wow the muggles? Or do you simply need a custom rig with which to &#8220;jack in&#8221; to &#8220;cyberspace&#8221;? How about building your own luggable, portable, computer with some style &#8212; your own cyberdeck?</p>
<p>Coming to you from the fertile world that William Gibson created in &#8220;Neuromancer&#8221;, &#8220;Count Zero&#8221;, and &#8220;Mona Lisa Overdrive&#8221;, cyberdecks were the portable computers that the heroes and anti-heroes roaming the Sprawl would use to connect to what was essentially the Internet. Since we&#8217;re already living in the era where large portions of the world are controlled by vast corporations, we spend our entire lives online, and machine intelligence is poised to become sentient, you might as well get building.</p>
<p><a href="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/ergodeck_detail.jpg" target="_blank"><img data-attachment-id="391485" data-permalink="https://hackaday.com/2019/12/24/advancing-the-state-of-cyberdeck-technology/ergodeck_detail/" data-orig-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/ergodeck_detail.jpg" data-orig-size="2000,1638" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="ergodeck_detail" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/ergodeck_detail.jpg?w=400" data-large-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/ergodeck_detail.jpg?w=763" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-391485" src="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/ergodeck_detail.jpg?w=400" alt="" width="400" height="328" srcset="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/ergodeck_detail.jpg 2000w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/ergodeck_detail.jpg?resize=250,205 250w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/ergodeck_detail.jpg?resize=400,328 400w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/ergodeck_detail.jpg?resize=763,625 763w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/ergodeck_detail.jpg?resize=1536,1258 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px" /></a>We&#8217;ve seen a number of <a href="https://hackaday.com/tag/cyberdeck/">great examples of cyberdeck builds</a>, and they&#8217;re all special in their own way, but there are common features uniting them all. First, you&#8217;ll need a screen, a portable computer brain, some batteries, and a nice keyboard. The good news is that all of the above have become eminently available, even inexpensive, in the last few years.</p>
<p>Discipline #1 is that of the case modder. You&#8217;re designing <a href="https://hackaday.com/2019/11/25/patrol-the-sprawl-with-this-battle-ready-cyberdeck/">your ideal portable computer</a>, after all. It&#8217;s got to <a href="https://hackaday.com/2019/12/24/advancing-the-state-of-cyberdeck-technology/">look <em>good</em></a>, and we don&#8217;t mean that black, boxy ThinkPad look. If you&#8217;ve got a 3D printer, and maybe a willingness to spray paint, the world is your oyster here.</p>
<p><a href="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/coffee-shop_thumbnail.png" target="_blank"><img data-attachment-id="416223" data-permalink="https://hackaday.com/2020/06/06/burning-chrome/coffee-shop_thumbnail/" data-orig-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/coffee-shop_thumbnail.png" data-orig-size="1200,1200" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="coffee-shop_thumbnail" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/coffee-shop_thumbnail.png?w=400" data-large-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/coffee-shop_thumbnail.png?w=625" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-416223" src="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/coffee-shop_thumbnail.png?w=400" alt="" width="400" height="400" srcset="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/coffee-shop_thumbnail.png 1200w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/coffee-shop_thumbnail.png?resize=250,250 250w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/coffee-shop_thumbnail.png?resize=400,400 400w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/coffee-shop_thumbnail.png?resize=625,625 625w" sizes="(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px" /></a>Discipline #2 is that of the keyboard builder. You&#8217;re not going to want to enter the Matrix with anything less than a pleasant typing interface. Again, 3D printing, <a href="https://hackaday.com/2019/10/05/a-cyberdeck-built-with-ergonomics-in-mind/">laser-cutting</a>, or <a href="https://hackaday.com/2020/06/03/a-dual-screen-luggable-with-integrated-rtl-sdr/">CNC milling your own keyplate</a> and building yourself a keyboard from scratch is a viable option, but there are tons of Bluetooth and USB keyboard options if you want to cut corners, or find one you really like.</p>
<p>Discipline #3 is the software hacker. Putting together exactly the right set of software, setting up the system to do what you want, and getting that sweet background screen <em>just right</em> are the last steps to making yourself at home in Cyberspace.</p>
<p>With so much latitude to introduce your own design ideas into your bespoke luggable, no two will be alike. Mine&#8217;s going to have programming ports for every microcontroller I frequently use, a decent speaker, maybe a variable power supply, and probably some reasonable amount of LED bling. What&#8217;s going to be on yours?</p>
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</div>Sat, 06 Jun 2020 14:01:01 GMThttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpVci6BvYJ5ILo7t9WW45yfv-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0eaLuP1qDfmsEAh9DsAzkMxh79J2SR5uGfwSparklines For Your ESP32 Projectshttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpVVI2ZYsj2Ok47t9WW45yfv-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0eamcImbxD4GLQp5vLqXzR4gOdBPqC4HkL4wvoE5rXnY07u8DtnYaLzBw
<img src="https://api.follow.it/rssubscribers/rss_show_story_count/391712653/429701" border=0 width="1" height="1" alt="Story 391712653" title="Story 391712653"> <p>On a typical microcontroller project we may only have access to a relatively tiny screen. Information display can be a challenge, but it&#8217;s one that may be made easier by <a href="https://github.com/0xPIT/ESParklines" target="_blank">[0xPIT]&#8217;s ESParklines library for Espressif processors</a> using the Arduino framework.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparkline" target="_blank">sparkline</a> is a simple line graph without annotations (like axes or units) intended to fit within the flow of text. They&#8217;re largely associated today with the statistician <a href="https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/" target="_blank">Edward Tufte</a>, and if you&#8217;ve not encountered them or Tufte before then we suggest you&#8217;ll enjoy educating yourself.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s a simple enough library and it comes with example code. Usefully it maintains a data buffer all of its own allowing simple updating, and as well as the examples there is a YouTube video we&#8217;ve put below the fold showing graphs evolving as more information is added to them. We&#8217;re curious about one thing though, it&#8217;s billed as an ESP library, for either the ESP8266 or the ESP32, but we can&#8217;t find any ESP-specific code in there and neither could our friendly ESP-guru. Have we missed something? The comments are below if you can shed any light.</p>
<p><span id="more-415854"></span></p>
<p><iframe class='youtube-player' width='800' height='480' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/Pvfijfrt5HI?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;wmode=transparent' allowfullscreen='true' style='border:0;'></iframe></p>Sat, 06 Jun 2020 11:01:35 GMThttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpVVI2ZYsj2Ok47t9WW45yfv-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0eamcImbxD4GLQp5vLqXzR4gOdBPqC4HkL4wvoE5rXnY07u8DtnYaLzBwVacuum Dust Collection With Self-Powered Relayshttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpVVI2ZYsj2Ok6N8kDTbolY4-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0eaFV941OcimtGLqtZyFdv8JTRHL8tLTqZWTGzf0c1qBbQRswANoFj4lzumN4qdxokdU3kSGTY22Lw
<img src="https://api.follow.it/rssubscribers/rss_show_story_count/391712652/429701" border=0 width="1" height="1" alt="Story 391712652" title="Story 391712652"> <p>Like many people with multiple woodworking tools, [Will Stone] wanted to create a centralized dust collection system. But he quickly found that the devil was in the details, as he struggled to find an economic way to automatically kick on the vacuum when one of the tools started up. His final solution might be <a href="https://hackaday.io/project/171988-self-powered-automatic-relay-spar" target="_blank">one of the most elegant, and surely the cheapest, we&#8217;ve ever come across</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/dustrelay_detail2.jpg" target="_blank"><img data-attachment-id="415240" data-permalink="https://hackaday.com/2020/06/06/vacuum-dust-collection-with-self-powered-relays/dustrelay_detail2/" data-orig-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/dustrelay_detail2.jpg" data-orig-size="587,463" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="dustrelay_detail2" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/dustrelay_detail2.jpg?w=400" data-large-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/dustrelay_detail2.jpg?w=587" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-415240" src="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/dustrelay_detail2.jpg?w=400" alt="" width="400" height="316" srcset="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/dustrelay_detail2.jpg 587w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/dustrelay_detail2.jpg?resize=250,197 250w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/dustrelay_detail2.jpg?resize=400,316 400w" sizes="(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px" /></a>As with other DIY systems we&#8217;ve seen over the years, [Will] is using a simple inductive current sensor to detect when AC power is being drawn by one of his tools. But where the similarity stops is that there&#8217;s nothing so pedestrian as a microcontroller reading the output of the sensor. He realized that when the coils in the sensor were energized they were putting out about 7 volts AC, which should be more than enough to trigger a relay.</p>
<p>So he threw together a rectifier circuit on a piece of perfboard, using four LEDs in true hacker style. With the addition of a capacitor to smooth out the voltage, this little circuit is able to trip the 40 amp solid state relay controlling power to the vacuum using nothing more than the energy harvested from the sensor&#8217;s coil.</p>
<p>Using a current sensor is great when the tools are close enough to all be plugged into the same line, but that doesn&#8217;t help the folks with cordless tools or supersized shops. In that case, <a href="https://hackaday.com/2020/02/10/building-a-sound-activated-shop-fan-with-arduino/">you might need to look into a sound-activated system</a>.</p>Sat, 06 Jun 2020 08:00:00 GMThttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpVVI2ZYsj2Ok6N8kDTbolY4-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0eaFV941OcimtGLqtZyFdv8JTRHL8tLTqZWTGzf0c1qBbQRswANoFj4lzumN4qdxokdU3kSGTY22LwAutomatic Planet Finder is Out of This Worldhttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpXCMIkVwAhS4S0TqNgZanG2-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0ea6gOwQZFY1vRyApaCuDaP5xxnhbdukJ1ZuVar5a8i98E6GvU-T9wvwT5x8kC5ldxT
<img src="https://api.follow.it/rssubscribers/rss_show_story_count/391641998/429701" border=0 width="1" height="1" alt="Story 391641998" title="Story 391641998"> <p>When the world is on your shoulders, it can be relaxing to remember that we&#8217;re just hairless monkeys hurtling through space on a big rock alongside a lot of other rocks. If you find yourself wondering where exactly the other major rocks are instead of worrying, we think that&#8217;s a good sign.</p>
<p>Wherever [snowbiscuit] lives, there&#8217;s a large planet finder in a public square somewhere that stopped locating rocks a long time ago. Hungry to watch such a thing in action, [snowbiscuit] built <a href="https://www.instructables.com/id/Raspberry-Pi-Planet-Finder/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">a great-looking tabletop version</a> that uses the Horizontal Coordinate System to locate planets. Inside is a Raspberry Pi 3, which queries NASA for azimuth and altitude data and combines that data with a predetermined north reading to point out whatever planet was selected by spinning the printed telescope on top. The telescope itself is non-working, and returns to north after a few seconds to wait for input.</p>
<p>This project is wide open for remixing if you want to make your own. As lovely as it is now, designing around a slip ring would eliminate all those long wires and make it more sleek. Take a peek after the break.</p>
<p>Don&#8217;t stop your desktop space toy collection there &#8212; <a href="https://hackaday.com/2019/12/10/globe-lamp-tracks-the-iss-for-you/">build an ISS-tracking lamp to go with it</a>.</p>
<p><span id="more-415379"></span></p>
<p><iframe class='youtube-player' width='800' height='480' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/5Lv4nMsgXCA?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;wmode=transparent' allowfullscreen='true' style='border:0;'></iframe></p>Sat, 06 Jun 2020 05:00:07 GMThttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpXCMIkVwAhS4S0TqNgZanG2-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0ea6gOwQZFY1vRyApaCuDaP5xxnhbdukJ1ZuVar5a8i98E6GvU-T9wvwT5x8kC5ldxTNew Microscope Directly Images Protein Atomshttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpXCMIkVwAhS4dNRD3N3mFWB-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0eaKIY2Ic94l1wRWZJBf59V2T75tXDr-ToIC_LWCiUOOTK2z0E-XHa28JezhKmDosLJ
<img src="https://api.follow.it/rssubscribers/rss_show_story_count/391641996/429701" border=0 width="1" height="1" alt="Story 391641996" title="Story 391641996"> <p>There&#8217;s an old joke that you can&#8217;t trust atoms &#8212; they make up everything. But until fairly recently, there was no real way to see individual atoms. You could infer things about them using X-ray crystallography or measure their pull on tiny probes using atomic force microscopes, but not take a direct image. Until now. Two laboratories recently used <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01658-1" target="_blank">cryo-electron microscopy</a> to directly image atoms in a protein molecule with a resolution of about 1.2 x 10<sup>-7</sup> millimeters or 1.2 ångströms. The previous record was 1.54 ångströms.</p>
<p>Recent improvements in electron beam technology helped, as did a device that ensures electrons that strike the sample travel at nearly the same speeds. The latter technique resulted in images so clear, researchers could identify individual hydrogen atoms in the apoferritin molecule and the water surrounding it.</p>
<p><span id="more-416109"></span></p>
<p>For years, the standard way to study protein structure was to form a crystal and study the way that crystal diffracts X-rays. However, some proteins are difficult or even impossible to crystalize. Cryo-electron microscopy doesn&#8217;t have this issue. The microscope operator has to flash freeze the sample. A better understanding of protein structure can further research into things such as enzyme action and help scientists develop better drugs.</p>
<p>Computer analysis of the electron emissions is a key part of the technique as well and one of the scientists involved believes that resolutions below 1 ångström are probably not possible for this method with current computing power. In addition, the quality of the image depends partially on the stability of the protein. Apoferritin is highly stable, but some other molecules they tested are not that stable. That means X-ray crystallography will probably remain the method of choice for proteins that will easily crystalize. This is especially true since the cryo-electron microscopy method can take hours or days of data collection to form a complete image.</p>
<p>If you want to know more about how <a href="https://hackaday.com/2019/02/18/electron-microscopes-are-awesome-everything-you-didnt-know-you-wanted-to-know/">an electron microscope works</a>, we&#8217;ve talked about that before. If you want to build your own atom-resolving microscope, check out our <a href="https://hackaday.com/2015/09/30/teeny-tiny-very-small-atomic-resolution-and-the-home-hobbyist/">survey of builds</a>.</p>Sat, 06 Jun 2020 02:00:08 GMThttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpXCMIkVwAhS4dNRD3N3mFWB-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0eaKIY2Ic94l1wRWZJBf59V2T75tXDr-ToIC_LWCiUOOTK2z0E-XHa28JezhKmDosLJHomebrew Coil Winder Makes Toroids a Snap to Windhttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpXCMIkVwAhS4Qlt6LtvZ36q-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0eaYTKiKAlQ5lVnyBJvh-TekDifjjf9IyiqFraNkU5O3C9NNuf4ltTyM6Tr813OzjwCykLjZN96S44
<img src="https://api.follow.it/rssubscribers/rss_show_story_count/391641995/429701" border=0 width="1" height="1" alt="Story 391641995" title="Story 391641995"> <p>Anyone who has ever wound a toroidal coil by hand can tell you that it&#8217;s not exactly a fun job. Even with the kinds of coils used in chokes and transformers for ham radio, which generally have relatively few windings, passing all that wire through the toroid time after time is a pain. And woe unto anyone who guesses wrong on how much wire the job will take.</p>
<p>To solve those problems, [Sandeep] came up with <a href="https://electricdiylab.com/diy-arduiuno-based-toroid-coil-winding-machine/" target="_blank">this clever and effective toroid winder</a>. The idea is to pass a small spool of magnet wire through the toroid&#8217;s core while simultaneously rotating the toroid to spread the windings out as evenly as possible. That obviously requires a winding ring that can be opened up to allow the toroid form to be inserted; [Sandeep] chose to make his winding ring out of plywood with a slit in it. Carrying the wire spool, the winding ring rotates on a C-shaped fixture that brackets the toroid, which itself rotates under stepper motor control on a trio of rollers. An Arduino controls the rotation of both motors, controlling the number of windings and their spread on the form. lacking a ferrite core for testing, [Sandeep] used a plywood ring as a stand-in, but the results are satisfying enough to make any manual coil-winder envious.</p>
<p>We love tools like this that make a boring job a snap. Whether it&#8217;s <a href="https://hackaday.com/2017/10/28/automate-wire-prep-with-a-robot-wire-cutter/">cutting wires for wiring harnesses</a> or <a href="https://hackaday.com/2016/06/18/cnc-upgrade-to-guitar-pickup-winding-machine/">winding guitar pickups</a>, tools like these are well worth the time spent to build them. But we suppose when it comes to toroid winding, <a href="https://hackaday.com/2013/02/13/toroid-winding-cheat/">one could always cheat</a>.</p>
<p><span id="more-415563"></span></p>
<p><iframe class='youtube-player' width='800' height='480' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/46rbpPwqelY?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;wmode=transparent' allowfullscreen='true' style='border:0;'></iframe></p>
<p>[via <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/arduino/comments/gtynju/diy_arduiuno_based_toroid_coil_winding_machine" target="_blank">r/Arduino</a>]</p>Fri, 05 Jun 2020 23:00:56 GMThttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpXCMIkVwAhS4Qlt6LtvZ36q-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0eaYTKiKAlQ5lVnyBJvh-TekDifjjf9IyiqFraNkU5O3C9NNuf4ltTyM6Tr813OzjwCykLjZN96S44Lattice Semiconductor Targets Bitstream Reverse Engineering In Latest Propel SDK Licensehttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpUgAlBSDCRQ8XpBYiKLE3lw-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0ea30FiWnkFJuY_9N2EOmgdonTSTfaMY2nQugILNU9TzgYlYaddWhX-HwgPezsi9H7y2gdXGrdXqCJ9v8cnoQ3Vfq1Y2-F4os16mJSzE9zFev-79Sz0pve3DiBnnqSQE-Ro
<img src="https://api.follow.it/rssubscribers/rss_show_story_count/391559617/429701" border=0 width="1" height="1" alt="Story 391559617" title="Story 391559617"> <p>The topic of reverse engineering is highly contentious at best when it comes to software and hardware development. Ever since the configuration protocol (bitstream) for Lattice Semiconductor&#8217;s iCE40 FPGAs was published in 2015 through reverse engineering efforts, there has been a silent war between proponents of open bitstream protocols and FPGA manufacturers, with the Lattice ECP5&#8217;s bitstream format having been largely reverse-engineered at this point.</p>
<p>Most recently, it appears that Lattice has fired a fresh shot across the bow of the open source projects. A <a href="https://twitter.com/fpga_dave/status/1268497428501725184" target="_blank">recently discovered</a> addition to the <a href="https://www.latticesemi.com/propel" target="_blank">Propel SDK</a>, which contains tools to program and debug Lattice devices, specifically references bitstream reverse engineering. When logged in with an account on the company&#8217;s website the user must agree to <a href="http://www.latticesemi.com/view_document?document_id=52956" target="_blank">the Lattice Propel License Agreement for Lattice Propel 1.0</a> prior to download. That document includes the following language:</p>
<blockquote><p>In particular, no right is granted hereunder [&#8230;] (3) for reverse engineering a bitstream format or other signaling protocol of any Lattice Semiconductor Corporation programmable logic device.</p></blockquote>
<p>For the uninitiated, this &#8216;bitstream&#8217; is a binary format that is used by an FPGA to configure its logic elements (LEs), telling it what circuits should be formed inside the FPGA. This bitstream is specific to each particular model of FPGA, and contains detailed information about the internal architecture and functionality of the chip. This also explains the secrecy around said bitstream format: by publishing the specifications of it, one reveals a lot of details about the inner workings that competitors of Lattice (Xilinx, Intel, Microchip, etc.) could use to their advantage.</p>
<p>A bitstream is very different from the binary code produced by a compiler for something like a Cortex-M microcontroller. Having a fixed ISA (e.g. ARMv7a, Thumb/Thumb2) hides the microcontroller implementation details. If these ISAs didn&#8217;t exist and instead one would directly program this underlying implementation of the processor, it would also reveal many details of the implementation that ARM would be unhappy to share.</p>
<p>Clauses prohibiting reverse engineering can be found in other parts of Lattice&#8217;s terms, such as <a href="https://www.latticesemi.com/About/LegalNotices.aspx" target="_blank">the legal notices section of their website</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>You may use any software provided on this website provided that you agree to be bound by the terms and conditions of the software license agreement(s) accompanying such software. You may not modify, reverse engineer, or disassemble any of the software, except as expressly permitted by the terms of the license agreement for such software.</p></blockquote>
<p>And the <a href="https://www.latticesemi.com/en/Products/DesignSoftwareAndIP/FPGAandLDS/LatticeDiamond" target="_blank">Lattice Diamond IDE</a> license (presented when a logged in account attempts to download the software) references underlying algorithms and interface techniques:</p>
<blockquote><p>2.9. Restrictions: You may not (and may not allow anyone else to): [&#8230;] (b) decompile, reverse engineer, or otherwise attempt to derive the source code for any Licensed Product or any underlying algorithms, user interface techniques, or other ideas embodied in a Licensed Product;</p></blockquote>
<p>But it appears that the Propel license is the first time the company has specifically referenced bitstreams.</p>
<h2>Legal Matters</h2>
<p>This all leads us back to what ultimately matters in a Court of Law: is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_engineering" target="_blank">reverse-engineering</a> legal? The answer to which is muddy at best. In US law, reverse-engineering has a &#8216;fair use&#8217; exception when it comes to interoperability. This is what enabled the development of non-IBM BIOSes for the first non-IBM PCs, and allowed the Samba project to reimplement the proprietary SMB network sharing protocol.</p>
<p>At issue with FPGAs is that of protocol interoperability: the bitstream is the protocol that the FPGA chip understands. This bitstream can be plain text, or could be encrypted, which would be desirable in the case of high-security applications. Obviously, by having access to the bitstream specification, a user would gain the freedom to create their own tools to interact with the (purchased) hardware.</p>
<p>Essentially, what it comes down to is that this bitstream protocol is not protected by either copyright or patent law. The only part that is truly off-limits is the software and associated documentation as written by the FPGA manufacturers, which are heavily protected by copyright law and NDAs. This means that (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design" target="_blank">clean-room</a>) reverse-engineering is fair game, making it a popular target for universities, as <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328257944_Recent_Advances_in_FPGA_Reverse_Engineering" target="_blank">this 2018 paper</a> on reverse-engineering mostly Xilinx FPGAs demonstrates.</p>
<p>A familiar use of the reverse engineered bitstream is the <a href="https://hackaday.com/2020/03/06/mithro-runs-down-open-source-fpga-toolchains/">open source community&#8217;s efforts to build FPGA tools</a> that do not require the use of proprietary software. This facilitates things like build automation and toolchain portability. The tools are already mature enough to produce valid bitstreams and there are numerous examples of hardware products, such as <a href="https://github.com/icebreaker-fpga/icebreaker" target="_blank">ICEBreaker</a>, <a href="https://tomu.im/fomu.html" target="_blank">Fomu</a>, <a href="https://github.com/gregdavill/OrangeCrab" target="_blank">OrangeCrab</a>, and even <a href="https://hackaday.com/2019/11/04/gigantic-fpga-in-a-game-boy-form-factor-2019-supercon-badge-is-a-hardware-siren-song/">the 2019 Hackaday Superconference Badge</a>, all built around Lattice FPGAs that recommend the use of the open source toolchains.</p>
<h2>The Old EULA Issue</h2>
<p>The fun thing about an end-user license agreement (EULA) is that one can write anything in it that one desires, and since nobody reads those darn things anyway, you&#8217;re practically guaranteed to find someone who violates part of the EULA. The less fun part for the EULA creator is that a EULA carries little weight unless backed up by national (or local) law.</p>
<p>To circle back to the original issue of the new phrasing in the Lattice Propel SDK license (EULA). One may note that it doesn&#8217;t say anything about reverse-engineering Lattice products being illegal, just that one is not allowed to use these (Propel) tools for said reverse-engineering. One is still free to use other tools, basically.</p>
<p>The core question here is whether one can outlaw the use of software tools for a specific purpose. That&#8217;s a much tougher question to answer. There is some precedent there when one considers that for example certain encryption tools<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States" target="_blank"> cannot be exported legally</a> from the US to certain countries, though it should be noted there again that this is due to government laws.</p>
<p>Saying that &#8216;you cannot use these tools we made for reverse-engineering our products&#8217; does to my knowledge not have any precedence at this point in time. It would, however, be fascinating to see whether Lattice Semiconductor is willing to test this new EULA phrasing in a Court of Law.</p>Fri, 05 Jun 2020 20:01:42 GMThttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpUgAlBSDCRQ8XpBYiKLE3lw-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0ea30FiWnkFJuY_9N2EOmgdonTSTfaMY2nQugILNU9TzgYlYaddWhX-HwgPezsi9H7y2gdXGrdXqCJ9v8cnoQ3Vfq1Y2-F4os16mJSzE9zFev-79Sz0pve3DiBnnqSQE-RoJoin the Movement with this Mini Cyberdeckhttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpUgAlBSDCRQ8XuzHRATg5-6-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0eajhpDhFrs8ZGljdDeXhPUDPSZKMMvdbXc8wYcQpHU1PB7mjxInboiOi6mjI5zz7y-
<img src="https://api.follow.it/rssubscribers/rss_show_story_count/391559616/429701" border=0 width="1" height="1" alt="Story 391559616" title="Story 391559616"> <p>The global pandemic has given many people a lot more time at home, which has undoubtedly pushed an untold number of projects over the finish line. Unfortunately, it&#8217;s also disrupted global commerce and shipping to the point that getting parts can be a lot harder than we&#8217;d like. Which is why [facelesstech] decided to <a href="https://facelesstech.wordpress.com/2020/06/02/cyberdeck-zbs/" target="_blank">put together this exceptionally mobile cyberdeck out of things he already had laying around</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/zbs_detail.jpg" target="_blank"><img data-attachment-id="415931" data-permalink="https://hackaday.com/2020/06/05/join-the-movement-with-this-mini-cyberdeck/zbs_detail/" data-orig-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/zbs_detail.jpg" data-orig-size="1200,1132" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="zbs_detail" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/zbs_detail.jpg?w=400" data-large-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/zbs_detail.jpg?w=663" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-415931" src="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/zbs_detail.jpg?w=400" alt="" width="400" height="377" srcset="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/zbs_detail.jpg 1200w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/zbs_detail.jpg?resize=250,236 250w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/zbs_detail.jpg?resize=400,377 400w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/zbs_detail.jpg?resize=663,625 663w" sizes="(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px" /></a>Now to be fair, his parts bin is perhaps a bit better stocked for this kind of thing than most. He&#8217;s built a couple of Raspberry Pi portables already, so the Pi Zero W, display, and battery management board were already kicking around. He just had to come up with a new 3D printed enclosure that holds it all together with a little bit of cyberpunk flair.</p>
<p>To that end, he&#8217;s done an excellent job of documenting the build and has released the STL files for the 3D printed components. All things considered, we&#8217;d say this is probably the most approachable cyberdeck design currently available; if you&#8217;ve been wondering what all the fuss is about with these bespoke little computers, this is an ideal project to get started with.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that the idea of a cyberdeck is to build something custom for yourself, so there&#8217;s no need to copy this build exactly. If you&#8217;re short on parts, you could forgo the battery powered aspect and just keep it tethered. The superfluous (but very cool) GX12 connectors could certainly be deleted as well, although at serious stylistic cost. You&#8217;ll probably need to order the specific keyboard that [facelesstech] designed the lower half of the device around, but it&#8217;s common enough that it shouldn&#8217;t be hard to track down. No matter which way you take it, this design is a great base to start from.</p>
<p>If you&#8217;re looking for something a bit more substantial and have the filament to burn, <a href="https://hackaday.com/2019/09/20/3d-printed-virtuscope-is-a-raspberry-pi-4-cyberdeck-with-a-purpose/">you might take a look at the VirtuScope</a> to fulfill your offset screen needs.</p>
<p><span id="more-415926"></span></p>
<p><iframe class='youtube-player' width='800' height='480' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/OqACVpz1b8Q?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;wmode=transparent' allowfullscreen='true' style='border:0;'></iframe></p>Fri, 05 Jun 2020 18:30:00 GMThttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpUgAlBSDCRQ8XuzHRATg5-6-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0eajhpDhFrs8ZGljdDeXhPUDPSZKMMvdbXc8wYcQpHU1PB7mjxInboiOi6mjI5zz7y-Ancient History of the Phone Jackhttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpUgAlBSDCRQ8ZKIiICg79pG-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0eaK2INle3C1RG7wXxnEdslKZ9Gyjy_vvD6qHzPzw5ovjz1lG7xyrNgZQ
<img src="https://api.follow.it/rssubscribers/rss_show_story_count/391559612/429701" border=0 width="1" height="1" alt="Story 391559612" title="Story 391559612"> <p>While watching a video about old radios from the 1920s, a phone jack popped up. The host mentioned that phone jacks are super old and he wondered what was their origin. I always assumed they had something to do with the telephone system, and that&#8217;s right, but I had no idea how old they really are and how they&#8217;ve evolved. Turns out the venerable plug goes back to at least 1878.</p>
<p>Keep in mind, I&#8217;m talking about the good old fashioned 1/4&#8243; phone jack with two wires. Over time, the jack and plug have spawned different versions with more wires and &#8212; particularly &#8212; smaller dimensions. The headphone jack that <a href="https://hackaday.com/2016/10/25/death-to-the-3-5mm-audio-jack-long-live-wireless/">many smartphone makers are dropping</a> is a direct descendant of that old phone jack. But a mono cable like you would see connecting an electric guitar or another mono source would be right at home connected to a 1900s switchboard. Let&#8217;s take a look at the origins of a design that&#8217;s almost 150 years old and still in use.</p>
<p><span id="more-408822"></span></p>
<h2><strong>A Connector Design for the Long Haul</strong></h2>
<p><a href="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/telephone-patent-1.png" target="_blank"><img data-attachment-id="416110" data-permalink="https://hackaday.com/2020/06/05/ancient-history-of-the-phone-jack/telephone-patent-2/" data-orig-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/telephone-patent-1.png" data-orig-size="1720,2984" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="telephone-patent" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/telephone-patent-1.png?w=231" data-large-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/telephone-patent-1.png?w=360" class="alignleft wp-image-416110 size-large" src="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/telephone-patent-1.png?w=360" alt="" width="360" height="625" srcset="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/telephone-patent-1.png 1720w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/telephone-patent-1.png?resize=144,250 144w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/telephone-patent-1.png?resize=231,400 231w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/telephone-patent-1.png?resize=360,625 360w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/telephone-patent-1.png?resize=885,1536 885w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/telephone-patent-1.png?resize=1180,2048 1180w" sizes="(max-width: 360px) 100vw, 360px" /></a>There&#8217;s some debate over which switchboard was the first in operation. But in Boston or Connecticut, the year was around 1877 or 1878 and it used something recognizable as a phone plug. The word jack wasn&#8217;t in use yet, though. That came from <a href="https://patents.google.com/patent/US293198A" target="_blank">Charles Scribner&#8217;s patent of a &#8220;spring jack&#8221;</a> that allows the plug to open a switch contact. Some later documents also call it a jackknife switch, apparently since the plug is somewhat like a pocket knife. The advancement made life at the switchboard easier and is also the mechanism radios use to disconnect the speaker when you plug in headphones.</p>
<p><a href="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/phone-jack-1893-patent-drawing.jpg" target="_blank"><img data-attachment-id="416111" data-permalink="https://hackaday.com/2020/06/05/ancient-history-of-the-phone-jack/phone-jack-1893-patent-drawing/" data-orig-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/phone-jack-1893-patent-drawing.jpg" data-orig-size="1163,554" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="phone-jack-1893-patent-drawing" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/phone-jack-1893-patent-drawing.jpg?w=400" data-large-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/phone-jack-1893-patent-drawing.jpg?w=800" class="alignright wp-image-416111" src="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/phone-jack-1893-patent-drawing.jpg?w=400" alt="" width="375" height="179" srcset="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/phone-jack-1893-patent-drawing.jpg 1163w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/phone-jack-1893-patent-drawing.jpg?resize=250,119 250w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/phone-jack-1893-patent-drawing.jpg?resize=400,191 400w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/phone-jack-1893-patent-drawing.jpg?resize=800,381 800w" sizes="(max-width: 375px) 100vw, 375px" /></a>Scribner would go on to get more patents related to the plug, and <a href="https://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=00489570&amp;SectionNum=2&amp;IDKey=71A4DA852E08&amp;HomeUrl=http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/patimg.htm" target="_blank">the 1893 patent drawing</a> looks like a modern plug and jack. As you might expect, all of these patents were assigned to the phone company.</p>
<h2>From Mono to Stereo</h2>
<p>The plug is simplicity itself. Just two conducting cylinders with a small insulating ring keeping them apart. The shape of the tip pushes a spring-loaded retainer. As long as the plug and the jack have roughly the same idea of where the insulating ring is, everything will be fine.</p>
<p><img data-attachment-id="416124" data-permalink="https://hackaday.com/2020/06/05/ancient-history-of-the-phone-jack/quarter-inch-stereo-plug-2/" data-orig-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/quarter-inch-stereo-plug.jpg" data-orig-size="3041,3041" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="quarter-inch-stereo-plug" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/quarter-inch-stereo-plug.jpg?w=400" data-large-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/quarter-inch-stereo-plug.jpg?w=625" class="alignleft wp-image-416124 size-thumbnail" src="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/quarter-inch-stereo-plug.jpg?w=250" alt="" width="250" height="250" srcset="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/quarter-inch-stereo-plug.jpg 3041w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/quarter-inch-stereo-plug.jpg?resize=250,250 250w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/quarter-inch-stereo-plug.jpg?resize=400,400 400w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/quarter-inch-stereo-plug.jpg?resize=625,625 625w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/quarter-inch-stereo-plug.jpg?resize=1536,1536 1536w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/quarter-inch-stereo-plug.jpg?resize=2048,2048 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px" />Of course, there was some variation in early designs, but the rounded tip quickly gained favor and would work with most jacks. The fact that the phone company was the primary source for these for decades made sure things were compatible, too. Not that they didn&#8217;t find wide application for headphones and even in the military.</p>
<p>Of course, later, it was common to see a third ring to handle stereo audio. At first, the stereo plugs were given a sharper tip so it would be possible to build jacks that would not accept a mono plug. After all, plugging a mono cable into a stereo jack will short the right channel to ground. However, this was unworkable in practice and for many years now, mono and stereo plugs have the same sharper profile that originally meant stereo.</p>
<h2>The Twenty-First Century and Beyond</h2>
<a href='https://hackaday.com/2020/06/05/ancient-history-of-the-phone-jack/rca-4/'><img width="400" height="260" src="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/rca.jpg?w=400" class="attachment-medium size-medium" alt="" srcset="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/rca.jpg 1600w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/rca.jpg?resize=250,163 250w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/rca.jpg?resize=400,260 400w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/rca.jpg?resize=800,520 800w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/rca.jpg?resize=1536,998 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px" data-attachment-id="409198" data-permalink="https://hackaday.com/2020/06/05/ancient-history-of-the-phone-jack/rca-4/" data-orig-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/rca.jpg" data-orig-size="1600,1040" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="rca" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/rca.jpg?w=400" data-large-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/rca.jpg?w=800" /></a>
<a href='https://hackaday.com/2020/06/05/ancient-history-of-the-phone-jack/rj11-phone-cord/'><img width="400" height="260" src="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/rj11-phone-cord.jpg?w=400" class="attachment-medium size-medium" alt="" srcset="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/rj11-phone-cord.jpg 1600w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/rj11-phone-cord.jpg?resize=250,163 250w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/rj11-phone-cord.jpg?resize=400,260 400w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/rj11-phone-cord.jpg?resize=800,520 800w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/rj11-phone-cord.jpg?resize=1536,998 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px" data-attachment-id="416120" data-permalink="https://hackaday.com/2020/06/05/ancient-history-of-the-phone-jack/rj11-phone-cord/" data-orig-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/rj11-phone-cord.jpg" data-orig-size="1600,1040" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="rj11-phone-cord" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/rj11-phone-cord.jpg?w=400" data-large-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/rj11-phone-cord.jpg?w=800" /></a>
<p>We still have both the original phone jack and variants of all sorts. Until recently, most cell phones had a small variant of the phone jack with four conductors for a headset &#8212; <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phone_connector_(audio)#TRRS_standards" target="_blank">usually known as TRRS for tip-ring-ring-sleeve</a>. Many still do, at least for now. The phone company&#8217;s &#8220;cord board&#8221; probably would be unrecognizable to Scribner, but he could still find some of his plugs at the local guitar store.</p>
<p>It doesn&#8217;t help that many people call a &#8220;registered jack&#8221; (like an RJ-11 or RJ-45) a phone jack. Then there&#8217;s the &#8220;phono&#8221; plug and jack &#8212; which I&#8217;ve always called RCA connectors. Just remember the next time you plug in those high-end headphones, the plug in your hand has way over a century of heritage.</p>
<p>Of course, switchboards became much rarer with the <a href="https://hackaday.com/2017/07/26/rotary-phones-and-the-birth-of-a-network/">ability to dial your own calls</a>. Then came the <a href="https://hackaday.com/2018/07/12/the-bad-old-days-of-telephone-answering-machines/">answering machine</a>.</p>Fri, 05 Jun 2020 17:01:30 GMThttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpUgAlBSDCRQ8ZKIiICg79pG-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0eaK2INle3C1RG7wXxnEdslKZ9Gyjy_vvD6qHzPzw5ovjz1lG7xyrNgZQHackaday Podcast 070: Memory Bump, Strontium Rain, Sentient Solder Smoke, and Botting Browsershttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpUgAlBSDCRQ8VRPqDJ3wxtd-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0ea2tj8c0rHEepi5T_U__3ldhZSYX8ZCGsicGDHtcQ-In3_3kVqlpxbcFD7klS0gacrBB10V2ZGK8PUYZBBxz76LUHwj1z6NZDlikMEhhiqpHCTR6iKSDnVCAeTLdv1iJVR
<img src="https://api.follow.it/rssubscribers/rss_show_story_count/391559605/429701" border=0 width="1" height="1" alt="Story 391559605" title="Story 391559605"> <p>Hackaday editors Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys bubble sort a sample set of amazing hacks from the past week. Who has even used the smart chip from an old credit card as a functional component in their own circuit? This guy. There&#8217;s something scientifically devious about the way solder smoke heat-seeks to your nostrils. There&#8217;s more than one way to strip 16-bit audio down to five. And those nuclear tests from the 40s, 50s, and 60s? Those are still affecting how science takes measurements of all sorts of things in the world.</p>
<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F833620843&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&visual=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&color=ff5500"></iframe>
<p><a href="https://feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/833620843-ep070-memory-bump-strontium-rain-sentient-solder-smoke-and-botting-browsers.mp3" target="_blank">Direct download</a> (~65 MB)</p>
<h3>Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://playmusic.app.goo.gl/?ibi=com.google.PlayMusic&amp;isi=691797987&amp;ius=googleplaymusic&amp;apn=com.google.android.music&amp;link=https://play.google.com/music/m/I25ml35zsjtkkxbn4dlwnd4vlhu?t%3DHackaday_Podcast%26pcampaignid%3DMKT-na-all-co-pr-mu-pod-16" target="_blank">Google Play</a></li>
<li><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/hackaday-podcast/id1447409683" target="_blank">iTunes</a></li>
<li><a href="https://soundcloud.com/hackaday" target="_blank">Soundcloud</a></li>
<li><a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/3NRV0mhZa8xeRT0EyLPaIp" target="_blank">Spotify</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/hackaday-podcast" target="_blank">Stitcher</a></li>
<li><a href="http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:93913472/sounds.rss" target="_blank">RSS</a></li>
</ul>
<p><span id="more-415952"></span></p>
<h2>Episode 070 Show Notes:</h2>
<h4>New This Week:</h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://hackaday.com/2020/05/28/raspberry-pi-4-gets-its-8-gigs/">Raspberry Pi 4 Gets Its 8 Gigs</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/latest-raspberry-pi-os-update-may-2020/" target="_blank">Latest Raspberry Pi OS update &#8211; May 2020 &#8211; Raspberry Pi</a></li>
<li><a href="https://hackaday.com/2020/06/01/linux-fu-raspberry-pi-desktop-headless/">Linux Fu: Raspberry Pi Desktop Headless</a></li>
<li><a href="https://hackaday.io/project/164845-dlt-one-a-damn-linux-tablet" target="_blank">DLT one &#8211; A Damn Linux Tablet!</a></li>
</ul>
<h4>Interesting Hacks of the Week:</h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://hackaday.com/2020/06/01/why-does-solder-smoke-always-find-your-face/">Why Does Solder Smoke Always Find Your Face?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://hackaday.com/2020/05/30/job-application-script-automates-the-boring-stuff-with-python/">Job Application Script Automates The Boring Stuff With Python</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.crummy.com/software/BeautifulSoup/" target="_blank">Beautiful Soup: We called him Tortoise because he taught us.</a></li>
<li><a href="https://selenium-python.readthedocs.io/" target="_blank">Selenium with Python — Selenium Python Bindings 2 documentation</a></li>
<li><a href="https://hackaday.com/2019/08/10/bots-that-snag-the-hottest-fashion-while-breaking-social-trust-in-commerce/">Bots That Snag The Hottest Fashion While Breaking Social Trust In Commerce</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsC4VGztDlg" target="_blank">finalphoenix &#8211; Rise of the Hypebots Scripting Streetwear &#8211; DEF CON 27 Conference</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="https://hackaday.com/2020/06/02/arduino-drums-bring-the-noise-no-midi-required/">Arduino Drums Bring The Noise, No MIDI Required</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%9C-law_algorithm" target="_blank">μ-law algorithm &#8211; Wikipedia</a></li>
<li><a href="https://hackaday.com/2020/06/02/arduino-drums-bring-the-noise-no-midi-required/#comment-6250912">Comment from Mike Lima on 4-bit ADPCM</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_differential_pulse-code_modulation" target="_blank">Adaptive differential pulse-code modulation &#8211; Wikipedia</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="https://hackaday.com/2020/06/01/credit-card-chip-used-to-make-crystal-radio/">Credit Card Chip Used To Make Crystal Radio</a></li>
<li><a href="https://hackaday.com/2020/06/02/remotely-navigate-the-apocalypse-in-mid-century-style/">Remotely Navigate The Apocalypse In Mid-Century Style</a></li>
<li><a href="https://hackaday.com/2020/06/01/cast-metal-from-prints-to-solidify-childhood-memories/">Cast Metal From Prints To Solidify Childhood Memories</a></li>
</ul>
<h4 style="clear: none;">Quick Hacks:</h4>
<ul>
<li>Elliot&#8217;s Picks:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://hackaday.com/2020/06/03/dual-wielding-robot-carves-3d-shapes-from-foam-with-warped-wire/">Dual-Wielding Robot Carves 3D Shapes From Foam With Warped Wire</a></li>
<li><a href="https://hackaday.com/2020/06/01/python-is-all-youll-ever-need-in-this-linux-distro/">Python Is All You’ll Ever Need In This Linux Distro</a></li>
<li><a href="https://hackaday.com/2020/06/01/rc-lawn-mower-keeps-the-grass-greener-on-your-side-of-the-fence/">RC Lawn Mower Keeps The Grass Greener On Your Side Of The Fence</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Mike&#8217;s Picks:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://hackaday.com/2020/06/03/a-dual-screen-luggable-with-integrated-rtl-sdr/">A Dual Screen Luggable With Integrated RTL-SDR</a></li>
<li><a href="https://hackaday.com/2020/06/02/inputs-of-interest-ergodox-post-mortem/">Inputs Of Interest: ErgoDox Post-Mortem</a></li>
<li><a href="https://hackaday.com/2020/05/31/building-one-test-fixture-to-rule-them-all/">Building One Test Fixture To Rule Them All</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h4>Can&#8217;t-Miss Articles:</h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://hackaday.com/2020/05/29/books-you-should-read-the-design-of-everyday-things/">Books You Should Read: The Design Of Everyday Things</a></li>
<li><a href="https://hackaday.com/2020/06/02/how-science-adapted-to-the-aftermath-of-cold-war-nuke-tests/">How Science Adapted To The Aftermath Of Cold War Nuke Tests</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://hackaday.com/2017/03/27/low-background-steel-so-hot-right-now/">Low Background Steel — So Hot Right Now</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>Fri, 05 Jun 2020 16:01:45 GMThttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpUgAlBSDCRQ8VRPqDJ3wxtd-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0ea2tj8c0rHEepi5T_U__3ldhZSYX8ZCGsicGDHtcQ-In3_3kVqlpxbcFD7klS0gacrBB10V2ZGK8PUYZBBxz76LUHwj1z6NZDlikMEhhiqpHCTR6iKSDnVCAeTLdv1iJVRTurning A MicroKORG Into A MicroKORG S With This Speaker Modhttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpUgAlBSDCRQ8bg8RdxFszHJ-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0ea5Vmu-woFJWrXOQqhPMLuB19jg_GvhgMf09RO4BV2TkQk27pyaFtzvKrrgNUbGefWsq9891X4aXuoCRBFS5SdZw
<img src="https://api.follow.it/rssubscribers/rss_show_story_count/391559604/429701" border=0 width="1" height="1" alt="Story 391559604" title="Story 391559604"> <p>When [Michael Wessel] bought his MicroKORG synthesizer/vocoder, he felt less than amused when two years later the MicroKORG S was released, with the &#8216;S&#8217; standing for &#8216;sound&#8217;, apparently, for the 2+1 speaker system that was added to it. Undeterred, [Michael] figured out that both synthesizers are similar enough that one could likely add a similar speaker system <a href="https://hackaday.io/project/172154-loudspeaker-your-microkorg" target="_blank">to the original MicroKORG</a>.</p>
<p>The similarities between the two products become apparent when one compares the <a href="https://www.korg.com/us/products/synthesizers/microkorg/" target="_blank">original</a> with its <a href="https://www.korg.com/us/products/synthesizers/microkorg_s/index.php" target="_blank">successor</a>, with the latter seemingly mostly adding said speakers and more presets, along with a snazzy new exterior. (Although the 1970s styling of the original may have more fans.) As the embedded video shows, this mod is fairly clean.</p>
<p>At the core of this mod is a <a href="https://www.diodes.com/assets/Datasheets/PAM8403.pdf" target="_blank">PAM8403</a>-based class D amplifier board. The PAM8403 is a 3 W audio amplifier, originally produced by Power Analog Microelectronics (now Diodes). While not an amazing amplifier, it lends itself well for battery-powered applications like the MicroKORG. Rounding out the build is a 7805 linear regulator to get 5 V for the PAM8403, a few filter capacitors, a switch to turn the speakers on/off, and of course the speakers.</p>
<p>Although there&#8217;s quite a bit of space in the enclosure, most speakers tend to be large enough that this can be a bit of a squeeze. [Michael] found some low-profile 20 W full-range speakers that seem to work well for this purpose. To finish wiring this up, all it takes is a hole saw and a way to get the audio output from the MicroKORG.</p>
<p>In this mod, [Michael] opted to get the audio from the output jack on the back, but for a cleaner result it probably could be wired straight into the on-board header.</p>
<p><span id="more-415776"></span></p>
<p><iframe class='youtube-player' width='800' height='480' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/C0g_5m_lPxk?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;wmode=transparent' allowfullscreen='true' style='border:0;'></iframe></p>Fri, 05 Jun 2020 15:30:00 GMThttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpUgAlBSDCRQ8bg8RdxFszHJ-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0ea5Vmu-woFJWrXOQqhPMLuB19jg_GvhgMf09RO4BV2TkQk27pyaFtzvKrrgNUbGefWsq9891X4aXuoCRBFS5SdZwThis Week in Security: Exim, Apple Sign-in, Cursed Wallpaper, and Nuclear Secretshttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpWurnNA5w5pxnOXmxPcy_8l-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0ear_St5VwgBd0mcfq9c5RGwtjQPbxzotVR_u_VEtmzjKAFC9OtMtfW3uaHfXAJCOEAPwLofskBYjU1HP2bIVfX0pKHnDAsmBjDunB2tB9QDzMPggKHg6Q_gw
<img src="https://api.follow.it/rssubscribers/rss_show_story_count/391559588/429701" border=0 width="1" height="1" alt="Story 391559588" title="Story 391559588"> <p>So first off, remember <a href="https://hackaday.com/2020/05/29/this-week-in-security-leaking-partial-bits-apple-news-and-overzealous-contact-tracing/">the Unc0ver vulnerability/jailbreak from last week</a>? In the 13.5.1 iOS release, the underlying flaw was fixed, closing the jailbreak. If you intend to jailbreak your iOS device, make sure not to install this update. That said, the normal warning applies: Be very careful about running out-of-date software.</p>
<h3>Apple Sign In</h3>
<p>An exploit in Apple&#8217;s web authentication protocol was <a href="https://bhavukjain.com/blog/2020/05/30/zeroday-signin-with-apple/" target="_blank"> fixed in the past week </a>. Sign In With Apple is similar to OAuth, and allows using an Apple account to sign in to other sites and services. Under the hood, a JSON Web Token (JWT) gets generated and passed around, in order to confirm the user&#8217;s identity. In theory, this scheme even allows authentication without disclosing the user&#8217;s email address.</p>
<p>So what could go wrong? Apparently a simple request for a JWT that&#8217;s signed with Apple&#8217;s public key will automatically be approved. Yeah, it was that bad. Any account linked to an Apple ID could be trivially compromised. It was fixed this past week, after being found and reported by [Bhavuk Jain].</p>
<h3>The Cursed Wallpaper</h3>
<p><a href="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/cursed_wallpaper.png" target="_blank"><img data-attachment-id="416194" data-permalink="https://hackaday.com/2020/06/05/this-week-in-security-exim-apple-sign-in-cursed-wallpaper-and-nuclear-secrets/cursed_wallpaper/" data-orig-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/cursed_wallpaper.png" data-orig-size="509,721" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="cursed_wallpaper" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/cursed_wallpaper.png?w=282" data-large-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/cursed_wallpaper.png?w=441" class="alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-416194" src="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/cursed_wallpaper.png?w=176" alt="" width="176" height="250" srcset="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/cursed_wallpaper.png 509w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/cursed_wallpaper.png?resize=176,250 176w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/cursed_wallpaper.png?resize=282,400 282w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/cursed_wallpaper.png?resize=441,625 441w" sizes="(max-width: 176px) 100vw, 176px" /></a>So when someone posts an image on twitter, and warns everyone to *never* use it as your phone wallpaper, what&#8217;s the logical thing to do? Apparently it&#8217;s only appropriate to immediately set it as your phone&#8217;s wallpaper, and then complain that it renders your phone unusable. So what&#8217;s going on?</p>
<p>The image in question uses a special color-space that the Android UI isn&#8217;t equipped to handle. That particular picture has a color value over 255, which is out of bounds, causing a crash in the UI. Once the Android UI has crashed, it&#8217;s impossible to change the wallpaper, leading to a crash loop. A few users were able to switch out their wallpapers in the few moments between crashes, but the surest way to clean up the mess is to manually remove the image using something like TWRP.</p>
<h3>Exim and CVE-2019-10149</h3>
<p>This vulnerability is one that keeps on giving. We <a href="https://hackaday.com/2019/06/14/this-week-in-security-use-emacs-crash-a-windows-server-and-a-cryptocurrency-heist/">talked about CVE-2019-10149</a> just about a year ago. This week, the NSA published a warning (<a href="https://www.heise.de/downloads/18/2/9/0/2/9/9/9/nsa.pdf" target="_blank">PDF</a>) that certain state actors are actively exploiting this Exim bug.</p>
<p>For a quick refresher, the Exim mail server is <a href="http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/man.202005/mxsurvey.html" target="_blank">the most popular mail server on the net</a>. CVE-2019-10149 is a clever exploit that tricks a vulnerable server into trying to send an email to a specially crafted address, hosted at a malicious mail server. When the target machine tries to send a bounceback message, the malicious server sends a byte every four minutes, forcing the connection to stay open for a week. This strategy ensures that the vulnerable code is hit. When the message is finally sent, the payload embedded in the email address is evaluated and executed.</p>
<p>The NSA warning specifies the Russian GRU as the culprit, acting under the name Sandworm. There&#8217;s likely quite the story behind how the current attacks were discovered to be of Russian origin. As none of the indicators of compromise are directly tied to the GRU, we&#8217;ll just have to take the NSA&#8217;s word for it, but of course they&#8217;re not going to make public how they get their counter-intel either.</p>
<p>In further GRU news, the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-condemns-russias-gru-over-georgia-cyber-attacks" target="_blank">UK has officially attributed</a> to them a series of attacks on the country of Georgia. These attacks shut down the Georgian power grid, encrypted hard drives (ransomware), and directly damaged financial systems. And just last month, <a href="https://wtop.com/europe/2020/05/merkel-evidence-of-russian-role-in-german-parliament-hack/" target="_blank">the German government attributed hacks on their parliament</a> to one particular GRU officer: Dmitriy Badin.</p>
<p>Attributing cyber attacks to a particular actor is always tricky, especially when savvy foreign intelligence agencies which don&#8217;t want to get caught are behind the work, but the fact that multiple government agencies are converging on the same conclusions is more persuasive. The German evidence, collected over five years and pointing to a particular agent, is particularly so.</p>
<h3>Stolen Nuclear Missile Secrets?</h3>
<p>Our final story comes from Sky News, who breaks the news that <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/hackers-steal-secrets-from-us-nuclear-missile-contractor-11999442" target="_blank">Westech International was hit with a ransomware attack</a>. As you may have guessed, this section&#8217;s title is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines" target="_blank">Betteridge&#8217;s Law</a> in action, albeit ironically.</p>
<p>So what really happened, and why is the &#8220;nuclear secrets&#8221; angle almost certainly bunk? First off, Westech isn&#8217;t a huge engineering firm, and they haven&#8217;t worked on designing any nuclear weapons systems. Go to their website, and look at the contracts they have and services they offer. Telecommunications, maintenance, and logistics planning.</p>
<p>Secondly, we know that the ransomware attack hit the machines doing their payroll. Classified information is subject to a strict set of rules in the US. It&#8217;s only to be kept and used in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF). Computers containing classified information are never to be connected to the unsecure network. There is even a dedicated Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet) that is only for secure communications and only accessible from a SCIF. All this to say, if a ransomware attack can ex-filtrate data back to an attacker, then somebody royally messed up in a way that often leads to jail time. It&#8217;s a long way from payroll to nuclear secrets.</p>
<h3>Rooting Your AT&amp;T Gateway</h3>
<p>[Andrew Dupuis] had an Arris Fiber Gateway provided by AT&amp;T, and like many a hacker, he wasn&#8217;t satisfied. Before we dive all the way into the rabbit-hole, we should point out that AT&amp;T is charging $10 a month for this device, and refuses to let their customers use their own hardware instead. [Andrew] believes that this probably violates FCC rules. In any case, he wanted to run his own gateway instead of being locked into AT&amp;T&#8217;s. The fiber connection uses 802.1x security on the physical connection, which also serves to lock customers into the official hardware. If a user could extract the 802.1x certificates, they could replace the official AT&amp;T gateway with their own hardware, which is <a href="https://www.dupuis.xyz/bgw210-700-root-and-certs/" target="_blank">the point of the writeup</a>.</p>
<p>The exploit itself starts with a firmware downgrade, back to a version that still contains the vulnerability. The vulnerability? A REST server intended for troubleshooting and debugging. A bit of work later, and the hardware is rooted, with a telnet server just waiting for you. It shouldn&#8217;t be very surprising, the OS under the hood is a standard embedded Linux. The first order of business is to disable the auto-update function, to avoid getting locked back out of the device.</p>
<p>[Andrew] explains how to properly secure the gateway, and re-tune it for better performance, good ideas if you intend to continue using it in your network. The real goal here is extracting the certificates. I&#8217;m not sure how much of a surprise it should be, but it seems that every device uses the same security certificates, and [Andrew] was kind enough to share the copy he extracted.</p>
<p>[Andrew] sent this in on the Hackaday Tipline. If you have research to share, or came across something you think we should cover, be sure to let us know about it!</p>Fri, 05 Jun 2020 14:00:04 GMThttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpWurnNA5w5pxnOXmxPcy_8l-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0ear_St5VwgBd0mcfq9c5RGwtjQPbxzotVR_u_VEtmzjKAFC9OtMtfW3uaHfXAJCOEAPwLofskBYjU1HP2bIVfX0pKHnDAsmBjDunB2tB9QDzMPggKHg6Q_gwTic-Tac-Toe Implemented in Single Call to printf()https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpX-IqWU0u-VW-4iGfm3s90d-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0eaXpJIcBXLmyTjGdIcHEWFIIDTeIguU3B8KbE5yvgtudUQZoHcKhr5k5KN78BFD2_4stz1H0J6SCY
<img src="https://api.follow.it/rssubscribers/rss_show_story_count/391430562/429701" border=0 width="1" height="1" alt="Story 391430562" title="Story 391430562"> <p>[Nicholas Carlini] programmed a C implementation of two-player Tic Tac Toe, <a href="https://github.com/carlini/printf-tac-toe" target="_blank">and he did it in a single call to <code>printf()</code></a>. The arguments for that single function call get mind-bendingly complex, so it may come as no surprise that it was written for <a href="https://www.ioccc.org/" target="_blank">The International Obfuscated C Code Contest</a> (IOCCC).</p>
<p><img data-attachment-id="415998" data-permalink="https://hackaday.com/2020/06/05/tic-tac-toe-implemented-in-single-call-to-printf/screenshot-2020-06-03-21-09-47/" data-orig-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Screenshot-2020-06-03-21.09.47.png" data-orig-size="444,444" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Screenshot 2020-06-03 21.09.47" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Screenshot-2020-06-03-21.09.47.png?w=400" data-large-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Screenshot-2020-06-03-21.09.47.png?w=444" class="wp-image-415998 alignright" src="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Screenshot-2020-06-03-21.09.47.png?w=250" alt="" width="200" height="200" srcset="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Screenshot-2020-06-03-21.09.47.png 444w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Screenshot-2020-06-03-21.09.47.png?resize=250,250 250w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Screenshot-2020-06-03-21.09.47.png?resize=400,400 400w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /></p>
<p>Most of us are aware that <code>printf()</code> is one of those functions that is considerably more complex under the hood, and capable of far more, than it may appear to be. But did you know that it is capable of Turing-complete computation?</p>
<p>[Nicholas] clearly steps through the theory, so give it a read. In short, a maze of arguments handles the logic of the game while an embedded <code>scanf()</code> reads user input, and printing the game board is always preceded by an escape code to clear the screen.</p>
<p>[Nicholas] is certainly no stranger to in-depth understandings; we&#8217;ve seen his work before in <a href="https://hackaday.com/2018/01/15/fooling-speech-recognition-with-hidden-voice-commands/">demonstrating how to fool speech recognition with hidden commands</a>, including a powerful example showing how two virtually identical-sounding audio files transcribe entirely differently.</p>Fri, 05 Jun 2020 11:00:00 GMThttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpX-IqWU0u-VW-4iGfm3s90d-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0eaXpJIcBXLmyTjGdIcHEWFIIDTeIguU3B8KbE5yvgtudUQZoHcKhr5k5KN78BFD2_4stz1H0J6SCYHow Did They Get Sampled Sounds From An SN76489 8-bit Sound Chip?https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpX-IqWU0u-VW6N8kDTbolY4-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0eaAoFmeFMTQADvWUn8pAXrcTVUenzmTcDE44XNg3qAXHXQgeXBNhX6IestIuR4UMAYPKb3rPo3YxYrp2TNwxL3WSHEjeERUiBX
<img src="https://api.follow.it/rssubscribers/rss_show_story_count/391430552/429701" border=0 width="1" height="1" alt="Story 391430552" title="Story 391430552"> <p>If you were lucky and had well-off parents in the early 1980s, your home computer had a sound chip on board and could make music. There were a variety of chips on the market that combined in some form the tone generators and noise sources of a synthesiser, but without the digital-to-analogue converters of later sound chips designed for sampled audio. They gave birth to chiptune music, but that was all they were made to do. The essence of a hack lies in making something perform in a way it was never intended to, and some game developers for the Acorn BBC Micro had its SN76489 producing sampled audio when it should never have been possible. How did they do it? <a href="https://scarybeastsecurity.blogspot.com/2020/06/sampled-sound-1980s-style-from-sn76489.html" target="_blank">It&#8217;s a topic [Chris Evans] has investigated thoroughly, and his write-up makes for a fascinating explanation</a>.</p>
<p>So, how can a set of audio tone generators be turned into a sampled audio player, and how can it be done when the CPU is a relatively puny 6502? There&#8217;s no processor bandwidth for clever Fourier transform tricks, and 1980s tech isn&#8217;t set up for high data bandwidths. The answer lies in making best use of the controls the chip does offer, namely frequency and volume of a tone. A single cycle of a tone can be given a volume, and thus can be treated as a single sample of an unintended DAC. By using a tone frequency well above the audio range a suitable sample frequency can be found, and thus an audio stream can be played. The write-up has links to some examples in an emulator, and while they&#8217;re hardly hi-fi they&#8217;re better than you might expect for the hardware involved. Still, even at that they don&#8217;t approach <a href="https://hackaday.com/2020/01/09/hifi-audio-on-the-commodore-64-48khz-yo/">this amazing 48kHz playback on a Commodore 64</a>.</p>
<p>Header: SN76489, on a Colecovision console motherboard. Evan-Amos / <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ColecoVision-Motherboard-Top.jpg" target="_blank">Public domain</a>.</p>Fri, 05 Jun 2020 08:00:00 GMThttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpX-IqWU0u-VW6N8kDTbolY4-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0eaAoFmeFMTQADvWUn8pAXrcTVUenzmTcDE44XNg3qAXHXQgeXBNhX6IestIuR4UMAYPKb3rPo3YxYrp2TNwxL3WSHEjeERUiBXNintendo’s GBA Dev Board Could Pass for Modern DIYhttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpVAe5N4EaRjHV6m-EaFsJ_k-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0eaYAccoFIW94c-f_N9gncBzDp3cS6OVen_gPprw0sRoXJuehIjMcusZvhNdr56HK-2O8V5JkqRYEc
<img src="https://api.follow.it/rssubscribers/rss_show_story_count/391338699/429701" border=0 width="1" height="1" alt="Story 391338699" title="Story 391338699"> <p>When the Game Boy Advance came on the scene in 2001, it was a pretty big deal. The 32-bit handheld represented the single biggest upgrade the iconic Game Boy line had ever received, not only in terms of raw processing power, but overall design. It would set the state-of-the-art in portable gaming for years, and Nintendo was eager to get developers on board.</p>
<p>Which could explain why the official GBA development kit, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezffQA6Ir38" target="_blank">recently shown off by [Hard4Games]</a>, looks like something that was built in a hackerspace. It&#8217;s pretty common for console development systems to look more like boxy 1990s computers than the sleek injection molded units that eventually take up residence under your television, but they don&#8217;t often come in the form of a bare PCB. It seems that Nintendo was in such a rush to get an early version of their latest handheld&#8217;s guts out to developers that they couldn&#8217;t even take the time to get a sheet metal case stamped out for it.</p>
<figure id="attachment_415890" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-415890" style="width: 400px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/gbadev_detail.jpg" target="_blank"><img data-attachment-id="415890" data-permalink="https://hackaday.com/2020/06/04/nintendos-gba-dev-board-could-pass-for-modern-diy/gbadev_detail/" data-orig-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/gbadev_detail.jpg" data-orig-size="963,708" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="gbadev_detail" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/gbadev_detail.jpg?w=400" data-large-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/gbadev_detail.jpg?w=800" class="size-medium wp-image-415890" src="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/gbadev_detail.jpg?w=400" alt="" width="400" height="294" srcset="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/gbadev_detail.jpg 963w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/gbadev_detail.jpg?resize=250,184 250w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/gbadev_detail.jpg?resize=400,294 400w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/gbadev_detail.jpg?resize=800,588 800w" sizes="(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px" /></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-415890" class="wp-caption-text">The development board doesn&#8217;t like later GBA games.</figcaption></figure>
<p>All of the principle parts of the final GBA are here, and as demonstrated in the video after the break, the board even plays commercially released games. Though [Hard4Games] did find that some titles from the later part of the handheld&#8217;s life had unusual graphical glitches; hinting that there are likely some low-level differences that don&#8217;t manifest themselves unless the developer was really digging deep to squeeze out all the performance they could.</p>
<p>The board also lacks support for Game Boy and Game Boy Color games, though this is not wholly surprising. When an older game was inserted into a GBA, the cartridge would physically depress a switch that enabled a special 8080-based coprocessor that existed solely for backwards compatibility. Adding that hardware to a development board would have made it more expensive and added no practical benefit. That said, [Hard4Games] does point out that there appears to be a unpopulated area of the board where the backwards compatibility switch could have been mounted.</p>
<p><a href="https://hackaday.com/2020/03/14/the-ultimate-game-boy-talk/">Hackers have always been enamored with the Game Boy</a>, so it&#8217;s fitting to see that the official development kit for the final entry into that storied line of handhelds looked a lot like something they could build themselves. If anyone feels inclined to build their own &#8220;deconstructed&#8221; GBA in this style, <a href="https://hackaday.com/submit-a-tip/">you know where to find us</a>.</p>
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<p><iframe class='youtube-player' width='800' height='480' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/ezffQA6Ir38?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;wmode=transparent' allowfullscreen='true' style='border:0;'></iframe></p>
<p>[Thanks to NeoTechni for the tip.]</p>Fri, 05 Jun 2020 05:00:00 GMThttps://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/a0geZfOFTpVAe5N4EaRjHV6m-EaFsJ_k-QNH3UknslCiD0IqIu44wPOxhPp-o0eaYAccoFIW94c-f_N9gncBzDp3cS6OVen_gPprw0sRoXJuehIjMcusZvhNdr56HK-2O8V5JkqRYEc